its beginning to look alot like christmas

..or not.
yesterday, December 16, it was 50 degrees outside. Everything where i live is blooming, its so odd. Tree's, roses, bushes, Pussy-willows, i can't understand it! it's literally a week before Christmas and it hasn't snowed since Halloween! things have been pretty quiet considering it's the week before Christmas, tomorrow i am going all out though, a whole day for shopping for presents and gifts for my family and friends. Ikea, Target, and Christmas tree shop (because it even has Christmas in the name! you have to give it props for that.)

    I always consider December the hardest month for food, so many good treats all month around. I can't lie, what i love most about the December season is Gingerbread

DEAR GOD DO I LOVE GINGERBREAD. my aunt brought these over to us a week ago, one for each of us!

mmmm sugar and gingerbread flavored. I of course nabbed the gingerbread first but i really want to wait till Christmas to eat it. now,  i really  wanted to it eat it right and there, and so i had to fight temptation so i used my favorite tea to help ward of the gingerbread craving

Celestial seasonings gingerbread spice! it actually tastes very much like gingerbread, celestial seasonings is always really close to the flavors of certain holiday treats. i think they always do a wonderful job. That's the beauty of the Christmas season though, is that if you really want to wait until christmas to eat treats, there are so many different kinds of alternatives nowadays to help ward of cravings, like this tea! Or if you love hot cocoa, there's always nestle's fat free hot cocoa to try!

In other news i saw the brand new Sherlock Holmes movie last night, which i loved, i really wish i read the books though, i saw it with a friend who has read the books, and i feel like she understood it alot more than i did :/
but it was so late that i didn't get home until  12 in the morning, and then went on to fall asleep on the couch :)

anyway, until my next post, Happy holidays!
Question: what do you and your family do for the holidays!
I'd love to here about it!

killing two birds with one stone

so, as a special treat, i have not one BUT TWO RECIPES TODAY!

i basically didn't leave the house this weekend which left me with long periods of time just sitting on the couch watching tv and eating, it was incredibly unproductive. it took me all the way till Sunday afternoon to stop being a lazy bones and actually get up and make something.

Saturday night, I'm sitting in my bed, it's pretty close to 1 am and just as i am about to drift off to dream land WHAM
a sudden craving for muesli hits me, and you know that in order to make muesli you have to let the oats soak the night before, so i crawled out of my bed down to the kitchen ( to find my sleeping sister splayed on the couch)
to make this:

Midnight Muesli

• 1 banana, chopped, 
• `1 tbsp toasted almonds
• 1 tbsp toasted coconut
• 1 tbsp wheat germ
• 1/3 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup almond milk
• dried or fresh berries to sprinkle on top
• 1 tsp ground flax seed

directions: the night before, mix together the oats, almond milk, wheat germ, and flax seed along with a dollop of yogurt if you so please, and place in fridge to soak overnight, in the morning, mix together coconut, berries, and toasted almonds and a sprinkling of sweetener if you want.
and you're done!

it was actually really good, so i was surprised seeing as how it was my first attempt at muesli, and it was so simple! i will definitely be making this again

so with the weekend come and gone, i need to get back into the flow of the week, meaning school work, after school clubs, and realizing i wont be able to cook dinner for myself every night this week, so i made more than i usually do for dinner (a single serving is what i usually make) i made an Asian edamame pasta salad

Edamame pasta Salad
serves 5 or 6

• a whole box of whole wheat pasta
• 1/4 cup tbsp of rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup carrots
• 1/2 up of zucchini chopped
• 1/4 cup of broccoli
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 tsp of sesame oil
• 2 tsp oyster sauce
• 1 and 1/4 cup edamame
• 2 chopped gloves of garlic

Directions: at a high temperature boil a large pot of water, once boiled, add in box of pasta and edamame. This should cook until the pasta is a little less than chewy, to the side place all vegetables in a pan to slowly and lightly stir fry. drain the pasta and mix in chopped garlic, once the vegetables are done also mix in with the pasta. in a small separate bowl mix together the sesame oil, the soy sauce, oyster sauce, and rice vinegar and whisk together until it is all together. After that pour into pasta while slowly mixing it together, let sit for a little bit, maybe 20 minutes so that the flavors can  mix together

baked :) Berry breakfast pudding

wow i haven't posted a new recipe in a while! which is why i am very pleased to present:

The baked berry oatmeal pudding
(serves 1)

baked oatmeal recipe

1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp of uncooked oatmeal,
1 tsp canola oil
3/4 cup almond milk
3 tbsp apple sauce
2 tbsp berries (blue berries)
1/2 a banana
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2packets of equal
1 tbsp almonds

preheat the oven to 350 degrees on the bake setting. in a blender, first mix the bananas,almond milk, almonds, applesauce, and vanilla extract, blend thoroughly and add in oil, and add in the oatmeal and sweetener last. before placing in over drop the berries of choice into the mixtures and sort of stir it, and if you really want to you can place a few berries on top just so.
bake for about 30 to 45 minutes.

i was inspired to make this oatmeal after i saw this post, and i wanted to make it for one, so i weened the ingredients down to a single serving. i loved the golden crust on top of the mushy semi thick consistency underneath it, it added a very nice contrast :)

In other news, i have noticed that my food photography definitely needs work :( i want to work harder to learn how to make food look good, but i have alot of trouble scheduling in time, with school and all the after school activities i'm in. SO in order to make the recipes i want to, i have to wake up at 5 in the morning to create them and then i get ready for school at 6:30 so i never have any good light! its way too dark to get the natural lighting i needto take pictures! and then i get home at 4 from school, when the sun has already gone down. it's just a pain in the butt.
but i'm going to keep working at it.

Berries and cream, Berries and cream, i'm a little boy who loves Berries and cream!

good morning!
i find myself sitting on my couch this lovely Sunday morning watching Harry Potter. again. i swear, it is always on ABC family. I feel like every weekend is Harry Potter weekend for them.

Last night, i fell asleep on my couch and forgot to make my oatmeal for the morning. so when i woke up on the couch at 2 in the morning i went straight to scrambling together SOMETHING for the morning ( there was no way i was going to be denied my leisurely Sunday  breakfast)

which is how this came to be:

Berries and cream oatmeal

• 1/2 cup dried oats
• 1/3 cup frozen berries
• 1 cup almond milk
• 1 tbsp of pecans
• sweetener of choice

prepare oatmeal at you normally would

the strawberry cream

• 1/2 cup of almond milk
• 1 tbsp sweetener of choice
• 1/4 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1/2 tbsp of maple syrup
• 2 strawberries

blend all of the cream ingredients together until a creamy mixture comes about.

mmm oatmealy  :)

POWER BREAKFEST!

hello! i am back! 
how was everyone's thanksgiving? i felt like this was the longest week ever, and i as only in school for three days.  i have a mountain of homework and little to no energy.
i was hoping these protein pancakes would help me overcome my back to school energy slump

i followed a recipe from calorie count, and of course i messed around with it a bit.
i used VEGA chocolate protein powder, unfortunately i didn't taste much chocolate. i mostly tasted the wheat bran the recipe called for, which is an odd sweet munch like, sort of flavor.
I've been really lacking motivation lately.when i came back from Florida and i wanted to do a whole week of low carb and no sugar, but to be honest the low carb thing has just made me tired and edgy and the no sugar part ( fruit, processed food, etc) make me want to binge eat. I've been tired, haven't felt like exercising at all and i have this remaining need to sit down and eat a whole cake......
weird right? so starting Monday i am going to get back on track!


In other news.....
look at this sweet bowl i bought at Epcot!

i bought it in japan land!

it was an excellent bowl to hold my afternoon snack, light harvest vegetable soup

and to add a bit more protein i added some edamame beans!

i am unfortunately not a soup person. i mean, if i wanted a liquid, i would drink it, right?

i just don't understand the concept of soup.

oh well, off to the gym tommorow! 

How was your thanksgiving?

I'd love to hear if you're willing to share!

day before the trip!

wow i've been so busy packing! we leave tommorow morning for the airport at 6, unfortunately our flight doesnt leave for orlando until 8 am. so i have aloooot of waiting time..
i'll probably catch up on my reading:


i've been reading this book since late september whenever i've had time to sit down. though i've read it a few times before its my favorite book by her.
since today was a half day (which is super lame, i mean really? the day before thanksgiving? why not just give us the day?) my friends and i did i normal ritual of heading to our local panera bread, which is conveniently right next to our highschool!

there i got the thai chopped chicken salad with a whole grain baguette

 its a pretty good salad, and i like it because even though it has the option of coming with chicken, you can get it without it, and still get an awesome source of vegetarian protein. not many salads at panera bread are vegetarian/ vegan friendly. sure you can take the meat or the cheese out of them, but they are left proteinless, and bland.

see you next monday when i get back from my trip! prepare for pictures!
AND REMEMBER, HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGVING!

what does it mean to be healthy?

hey everyone! I've been gone awhile, i know. the show was such a great success, and it was very popular, and I'm very happy its over. its so nice to have a life again. its like...waking up on a Saturday, and actually being apple to enjoy my breakfast without the worry of being late to rehearsal, is amazing. for tech week, we were at the school every night till 11 o clock at night. it was pure craziness.
but now its over and i am free!

and just in time for a great food holiday, THANKSGIVING! which i will in fact be in Florida for :) we are meeting up with my dad, who lives abroad, in Florida so we can all have thanksgiving together and go to harry potter world.


So today;'s post i wanted to mainly dedicate to what your perception of healthy is.
now a days you see that label every where in many different places, so often that i think the word has really lost meaning.
many people look at healthy food the wrong way, maybe for them its a way to not feel guilty about eating chocolate cake, or a way to lose weight. but no. i don't think that's really what it means.

When i look at healthy as a term to label food, i consider the facts.

• how can i benefit from this?
• will it give me energy?
• does it contain essential fats, or/and minerals, and vitamins i need to have a functioning body?
• does it have harmful preservatives?
• is it organic?

when you go to the grocery store and see a low fat low calorie chocolate cake,would you describe it as healthy? probably not. while it IS low calorie, and not the usual calorie bomb a chocolate cake is, your body does not benefit from that food in any way shape or form.

its mostly used by the weight loss and diet industry as a ploy to use their products.
now, what IS healthy?
whole grains, homegrown vegetables lacking in preservatives, olive oil, nuts, berries,  meat from farmers markets (though i don't partake in that) certain kinds of dairy etc.

so next time you go to eat something thats "healthy" really look at it.

till next time!